The History of E-Health and Health IT in Australia
Welcome to A New Wiki To Assist in the Documentation Of E-Health History in Australia.
[NOTE - EC: here is a very first draft - please feel free to play with this structure]
Introduction
(a few words about what this is , some notable events, and the major international contributions from Australia to informatics)
A chronological history
Can we create a table here of say 10-15 major events (and have supplemental tables later on for more detailed stuff - eg Evelyn's table on the professional bodies I have put in later on)
DGM - My Initial List. (People can add examples of each phase as they have them)
1. Following Initial Development of General Purpose Computers we had work at by Barnett, Warner and so on in the early 1960's which led to the first hospital applications. Event 1.
2. Initial Hospital Information Systems (Lockeed etc) later in that decade
3. Earliest Hospital Activity In Australia - via NSW Health Commission - HP Contract to develop PMI / ATS Systems NSW (circa 1975) (Used HP-3000 Minicomputers) Other States??
4. Emergence of Affordable Minicomputers with Departmental Computing becoming possible (1970 on) (HP, Digital, Data General etc) - More distinct move into clinical areas
5. Emergence of Microcomputers (IBM Personal Computer and so on) Late 70s spurred extra innovation and experimentation as costs dropped
6. Earliest General Practice Computing (Trevor Lord and David Rowed would be good sources as would GPCG records)
7. Initial Academic Initiatives (Monash, UNSW CQU and others?) Emergence of Textbooks (Blum, 1986, Shortliffe et al, 1990, Coeira 1997)
8. Various State Based Initiatives (NSW Computer Division and other equivalents)
9. Major Government Initiatives (Especially PIP program which got GP Computer use underway).
10. National Planning Efforts (HCN, 1993, Health On Line 2000, NEHTA 2005, National E-Health Strategy 2007)
The early years (pre 1970)
First clinical information systems (1970-1990)
(I would add in the early adoption of DRGs here)
The lost decade (1990-2000)
Ramping up (2000-2010)
Today
Special Topics
Australian informatics research
Some suggested paragraphsMelbourne - Branko Cesnik, Michael Kidd, Chris SilagyEvelyn and Educational research (USyd's online medical program in 1990s - ask Ross Lazarus?)Sydney - Michael Kidd USyd, UNSW - Enrico, Paul Compton, Jo WestbrookCSIRO E-healthNICTA - Penny Sanderson
Australian informatics technologies and companies
Pen, iSOFT, HCN, PKS, Sydney SVH Lacey system
Participation with International Standards Bodies
Nursing Informatics in Australia
Extracted from Hovenga E, Honey M, Westbrooke L, Carr R, Pacific Rim Perspectives in Saba & McCormick, 5th Ed Essentials of Nursing Informatics, McGraw-Hill, NY
Nursing informatics in Australia began with the Royal Australian Nursing Federation (now ANF) in 1984. A year later a small group of midwives in Victoria, including Joan Edgecumbe, who is now the Executive Officer of the Health Informatics Society, Australia decided to call a general meeting of nurses interested in computer use. About 70 nurses agreed to establish the Nursing Computer Group Victoria (NCGV). This group continued to flourish and hosted the Fourth International Symposium on Nursing Use of Computers and Information Science in Melbourne in 1991. The profits of this conference enabled the formation of the Health Informatics Society of Australia.
Medical informatics
The Professions of Informatics in Australia
Table X.X: History of Australian Health Informatics Professional Groups and the promotion of this discipline
Adoption of position statement on “Computerisation in Health Services – Implications for Nursing” (RANF 1984)
1985
RCNA
Seventh National Conference theme, “Information Processing- Challenges and Choices for Nurses”, Melbourne. This inspired a small group of midwives.
1985
Midwives Association
General meeting of nurses interested in computer use – 70 nurses attended. The Nursing Computer Group Victoria (NCGV) was established.
1986
Royal Adelaide Hospital Nurses Education Fund
Sponsored a National Nursing Conference with the theme: “From Lamp to Light Pen – Computers in Nursing” to celebrate their 150 Jubilee. Nurses from Queensland and Western Australia computer groups established the previous year, networked.
1986
Health Commission of Victoria
Government funded the then senior nursing advisor to undertake a worldtour to investigate the likely impact on nurses of computer use in the health industry.
1986
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)
National computer committee established following the formation of several State based medical computing interest groups.
1986
Australian participants at Medinfo’86
Around 20 Australians met in Washington DC and decided to form a network with the aim of promoting health informatics among health professionals. This resulted in the formation of a number of computer groups in several States over the years that followed. Meanwhile the Australian Computer Society (ACS) Inc. was the organisation that represented Australia at IMIA.
1987
RACGP
Computer Fellow position established in conjunction with Monash University’s Department of Community Medicine.
1988
RACGP
Standards for Computerised Medical Records Systems released.
1989
Australian Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)
A Western Australia initiative to form AMIA with State based branches. The inaugural meeting of AMIA (Victorian Branch) was held in Melbourne in 1991. AMIA secured an affiliation with the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and became the ACS medical informatics special interest group.
1990
Australian Health Informatics Association SA
Sixteen health informatics enthusiasts met in South Australia and established AHIA SA. They published six issues of the Health Informatics News and Technology (HINT) annually.
1991
Australian Computer Society (ACS) medical informatics special interest group
The ACS MI SIG organized a one-day health track at the ACS annual conference held in Adelaide that year. This was seen as an opportunity for members of the many disparate groups to meet and discuss the possibility of forming one national organization. Disagreement regarding the name (medical vs health) and the entry requirements remained unresolved.
1991
Australian Health Informatics Association Qld
A group of health professionals organised regular educational meetings in Brisbane and formed AHIA Qld.
1991
Health Informatics Association New South Wales (HIANSW)
HIANSW was established by 36 people representing a wide range of health and IT professionals, incl. Nurses. They produces a regular newsletter, Computers in Health Information Processing (CHIP)
1991
Nursing Computer Group Victoria
International Nursing Informatics Symposium held in Melbourne hosted by the NCGV under the auspices of the IMIA Nursing Informatics working group.
1991
NI’91 Post Conference meeting
Nurses from all States and Territories discussed the formation of a National Nursing Informatics group. Everyone agreed to work together, but the formalization of a new national organization was problematic due to differences between the state-based groups regarding affiliations with other professional nursing organizations. Subsequently, the Nursing Computer Group Victoria changed its name to Nursing Informatics Australia (NIA)
1992
Nursing Informatics Australia (NIA)
Post conference profits were used to establish a secretariat and launch a new look magazine.
1992
Australian Nursing Informatics Council (ANIC)
One representative from each state-based nursing informatics group was appointed to form ANIC
1992
Standards Australia
Health Informatics Standards Committee – IT-14 established
1992
HIANSW Conference
Another attempt at uniting the 23 distinct groups was made at the first HIANSW conference held in Laura, New South Wales to discuss how to best work together and how health (medical) informatics should be represented at IMIA. This resulted in a resolution to: 1.Form a National Council of Health Informatics Groups. 2.Combine three newsletters/journals, CHIP, HINT, and Nursing Informatics Australia, into one national and multidisciplinary magazine with a national editorial board. The first issue of Informatics in Healthcare Australia came out in May 1992 funded by NIA.
1992
AMIA meeting, Melbourne
Discussion paper summarizing deliberations, and a scenario for the development of one new national organization to represent the field of health informatics in Australia was circulated widely.
1992
Australian Nursing Informatics Council (ANIC)
Initiated the idea to organize a national conference in 1993. Several groups supported this idea, and since NIA was the only organization with the necessary funds, this group managed this inaugural conference. This became an annual event known as HIC – Health Informatics Conference.
1993
Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA)
A special meeting of representatives from interested groups, facilitated by Dr. Ian Graham, who was the Director, Centre for Health Informatics at the Austin Hospital, was held in Sydney. This meeting produced a draft Constitution for HISA, reflecting an agreed set of principles. (refer www.hisa.org.au)
1993
HISA Victoria
NIA was reconstituted as the HISA Victoria branch
1993
HISA Inaugural general meeting
The draft constitution was presented to potential HISA members at its inaugural general meeting held in conjunction with the inaugural Health Informatics Conference (HIC ’93), and they voted for its adoption. Conference profits were then used to fund the further development of the constitution and incorporation.
1994
HISA Constituted
The NIA (now HISA Vic) secretariat became HISA’s secretariat.
1994
HISA Standards SIG
HISA’s representative to IT-14 informed the committee of the recommendation for the adoption of HL7 messaging standards, this was accepted.
1995
HISA
HISA became the official group to represent Australia at IMIA
1996
HISA NI Sig
HISA Nursing Informatics special interest group established.
1997
General Practice Computing Group (GPCG)
Established by GPs, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing to provide a strategic and co-operative approach to Australian GP informatics. (refer www.gpcg.org/)
2000
HISA
A new constitution was adopted making HISA a company limited by guarantee of its members.
2001
Australian College of Health Informatics (ACHI)
Meeting of seven Health Informaticians funded by the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care resulted in the formation of ACHI in 2002 with 18 invited Fellows selected via a peer review and consensus regarding the country’s 20 top health informaticians to act as the peak reference body for health informatics in Australia. By 2004 there were 30 Fellows and Members. (refer www.achi.org.au)
2002
HL7 Australia
A Health Level Seven (HL7) user group established. An HL7 International Affiliates meeting held in Melbourne (refer www.hl7.org.au)
2002
HISA
Hosted an international ISO TC215 meeting in Melbourne
2003
HISA
A Pathology SIG established
2004
HISA
An Aged care SIG established
2009
Australasian College of Health Informatics (ACHI)
The has increased its membership to suitably qualified candidates in New Zealnd and Asia. There is an agreement between HINZ and ACHI to work together. ACHI initiated the establishment of the Australian Health Informatics Education Council (AHIEC), continues to provide a secretarial service for this Council and prepared a strategic workplan for national HI and NI education.
2010
ACHI
ACHI was accepted as a member of the Australian Council of Professions Ltd
The History of E-Health and Health IT in Australia
Welcome to A New Wiki To Assist in the Documentation Of E-Health History in Australia.[NOTE - EC: here is a very first draft - please feel free to play with this structure]
Introduction
(a few words about what this is , some notable events, and the major international contributions from Australia to informatics)A chronological history
Can we create a table here of say 10-15 major events (and have supplemental tables later on for more detailed stuff - eg Evelyn's table on the professional bodies I have put in later on)
DGM - My Initial List. (People can add examples of each phase as they have them)
1. Following Initial Development of General Purpose Computers we had work at by Barnett, Warner and so on in the early 1960's which led to the first hospital applications. Event 1.
2. Initial Hospital Information Systems (Lockeed etc) later in that decade
3. Earliest Hospital Activity In Australia - via NSW Health Commission - HP Contract to develop PMI / ATS Systems NSW (circa 1975) (Used HP-3000 Minicomputers) Other States??
4. Emergence of Affordable Minicomputers with Departmental Computing becoming possible (1970 on) (HP, Digital, Data General etc) - More distinct move into clinical areas
5. Emergence of Microcomputers (IBM Personal Computer and so on) Late 70s spurred extra innovation and experimentation as costs dropped
6. Earliest General Practice Computing (Trevor Lord and David Rowed would be good sources as would GPCG records)
7. Initial Academic Initiatives (Monash, UNSW CQU and others?) Emergence of Textbooks (Blum, 1986, Shortliffe et al, 1990, Coeira 1997)
8. Various State Based Initiatives (NSW Computer Division and other equivalents)
9. Major Government Initiatives (Especially PIP program which got GP Computer use underway).
10. National Planning Efforts (HCN, 1993, Health On Line 2000, NEHTA 2005, National E-Health Strategy 2007)
The early years (pre 1970)
First clinical information systems (1970-1990)
(I would add in the early adoption of DRGs here)The lost decade (1990-2000)
Ramping up (2000-2010)
Today
Special Topics
Australian informatics research
Some suggested paragraphs Melbourne - Branko Cesnik, Michael Kidd, Chris SilagyEvelyn and Educational research (USyd's online medical program in 1990s - ask Ross Lazarus?) Sydney - Michael Kidd USyd, UNSW - Enrico, Paul Compton, Jo Westbrook CSIRO E-healthNICTA - Penny SandersonAustralian informatics technologies and companies
Pen, iSOFT, HCN, PKS, Sydney SVH Lacey systemParticipation with International Standards Bodies
Nursing Informatics in Australia
Extracted from Hovenga E, Honey M, Westbrooke L, Carr R, Pacific Rim Perspectives in Saba & McCormick, 5th Ed Essentials of Nursing Informatics, McGraw-Hill, NY
Nursing informatics in Australia began with the Royal Australian Nursing Federation (now ANF) in 1984. A year later a small group of midwives in Victoria, including Joan Edgecumbe, who is now the Executive Officer of the Health Informatics Society, Australia decided to call a general meeting of nurses interested in computer use. About 70 nurses agreed to establish the Nursing Computer Group Victoria (NCGV). This group continued to flourish and hosted the Fourth International Symposium on Nursing Use of Computers and Information Science in Melbourne in 1991. The profits of this conference enabled the formation of the Health Informatics Society of Australia.
Medical informatics
The Professions of Informatics in Australia
Table X.X: History of Australian Health Informatics Professional Groups and the promotion of this discipline
1.Form a National Council of Health Informatics Groups.
2.Combine three newsletters/journals, CHIP, HINT, and Nursing Informatics Australia, into one national and multidisciplinary magazine with a national editorial board. The first issue of Informatics in Healthcare Australia came out in May 1992 funded by NIA.
An HL7 International Affiliates meeting held in Melbourne (refer www.hl7.org.au)